Stark County Court denies summary judgment to attorney Edward Gilbert and his clients in defamation case by former Canton McKinley football coaches falsely accused of anti-Semitism; Jury trial set for March 10
Yesterday, Judge Natalie Haupt of the Stark County Court of Common Please issued an order denying the motion for summary judgment filed by attorney Edward Gilbert and his clients, who were sued for defamation after they made national and international headlines in the spring of 2021 with their sensational, false, fabricated, defamatory, and malicious accusations that Canton McKinley head football coach Marcus Wattley and his staff had committed a shocking act of anti-Semitic abuse against one of their players by forcing him to eat a pepperoni pizza with deliberate intent to cause the player “psychological harm” by violating his alleged Hebrew Israelite religious beliefs that prohibited the consumption of pork.
As soon as these shocking accusations first surfaced, eyewitnesses immediately went on record to confirm that they were false. Evidence discovered in the coaches’ defamation case further confirmed the false and malicious nature of these accusations, and that Gilbert had deliberately exploited these accusations, with knowledge of their falsity, in order to extort a settlement out of the Canton City School District.
In yesterday’s order, Judge Haupt referred to the “voluminous evidentiary materials submitted” by the coaches in support of their claims, and held that this evidence could support a “reasonable inference of malice” on Gilbert’s part, meeting Ohio law’s high bar for imposing defamation liability against an attorney, which requires “something extraordinary, perhaps unethical conduct or conduct on the verge of fraud.”
Judge Haupt further held that Gilbert’s extrajudicial pre-suit statements about the coaches were not entitled to the privilege afforded to statements “bearing some reasonable relation to judicial proceedings,” citing Ohio law holding that the privilege “does not give a person carte blanche to defame another on the mere condition that a judicial proceeding is mentioned in, or somehow connected to, the defamatory statement.” “In light of the voluminous evidentiary materials submitted,” Judge Haupt ruled that a reasonable jury may find that Gilbert’s pre-suit statements were not made “in the regular course of preparing for and conducting a proceeding that [was] contemplated in good faith and under serious consideration.”
As a result of his ruling, the jury trial in this case (No. 2023CV00931) will proceed as scheduled on March 10 at the Stark County Courthouse in Canton. To review summaries of and access links to the evidence supporting the coaches’ claims, see here, and here, for a copy of the Court’s order denying Gilbert’s and his clients’ motions for summary judgment, see here, and for more information about this case, see here.